Turkey decides not to send trooTps to Iraq

Political analysts said the move would expose the problems US forces are having in restoring order in Iraq but should not harm ties between NATO allies Washington and Ankara. Turkish financial markets shrugged off the announcement.

Turkey took its decision after Secretary of State Colin Powell rang Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul Thursday evening.

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"After reviewing the situation Foreign Minister Gul informed Secretary Powell that the Turkish government would reconsider its offer to send troops," a Foreign Ministry statement said.

Washington admitted Friday that Turkish troops might not add to stability in Iraq, where attacks on US-led forces are a daily occurrence.

"Obviously, we would have preferred if this (had) all worked out very nicely to everybody's satisfaction but let's remember that the goal is stability in Iraq," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters.

"There is recognition, I think, on all our parts -- the United States' side, Turkish as well as the Iraqis -- that maybe this deployment at this time would not add to that goal in the way that we had hoped it would," he added.

Turkey's decision to dispatch soldiers to Iraq, once part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, was strongly opposed by Iraq's Governing Council and Iraq's Kurds, who have seen Turkish troops based in their northern mountainous region since the mid-1990s.